Chapter 44

The two groups of three were now starting to fight.

Both sides had taken position at the fighting stage.

"Good luck Father," Future Trunks said to Vegeta right before they moved unto the arena, "and to you two too," he addressed the other two fighters. "Seventeen."

He gave the Android a short respectful nod... and Seventeen returned it.

Then the fight instantly started without any delay or hesitation and the members of the two groups leaped forward and clashed with each other.

Seventeen formed a number of barriers around their opponents to limit their movements.

Towa countered by forming three apparations of herself outside the barriers.

These apparations however were right away hit by a barrage of Death Beams from the newly formed Fusion named Picooler and a Big Bang attack from Vegeta and nearly instantly wiped out.

xxxx

They remembered what Saek had told them about his now former comrades:

`Towa´s weaknesses are her arrogance and her over-reliance on her sorcery, which usually costs a lot of energy. That doesn´t mean however that she is physically weak. She is actually one of our best fighters, just prefers to use magic instead instead of getting into a brawl. Don´t underestimate her.

`Krombar is like all of us a powerful fighter - as strong as all of our kind is, vicious and dangerous. But he is prone to panic and making mistakes whenever he looses control of a situation. Try to put him into a corner.´

xxxx

The two Fallen Angels and Beby in the copied body of Vegeta now however combined and concentrated their blasts at one point of the barriers that entrapped them. That instantly broke under the combined assault and they managed to break free.

But the Z-fighters moved quickly and engaged them in close combat.

Seventeen removed the rest of his barriers for the moment to give his teammates and himself more room to act.

Vegeta, who had powered up into his strongest form of a God Ki powered SS4 (or second strongest if you counted his newly use of Destruction Energy), appeared right in front of Towa and threw a punch at her, right as she was about to raise her staff for a magic attack and forced her to defend herself instead.

"You surprise me Vegeta," she said. "I thought you would have rather want to fight Beby. It must be kind of insulting to you that he is using an exact copy of yourself?"

Vegeta just smiled.

"I guess I will just deal with him after I am finished with you," he stated.

"You truly think you will still be able to do that after fighting with me?" she asked aggrivated.

"Yes," he replied casually.

This response only infuriated Towa even more and she went to attack Vegeta with her bare hands, demateriralizing her staff for that.

He admitted Saek had been right, she was truly not lacking in physical strength. In fact she was probably about as strong as Whis. A couple of years back this would have been a great problem, but now it was nothing he could not deal with if it came hard to hard.

But Towa was right in one point. It was not her he truly wanted to defeat.

But the time had not quite come yet.

xxx

Picooler send a line of Death Beams at Beby in his copied Vegeta-body, that stopped the Tsufuru-parasit in his tracks, forcing him to deflect them. Followed by a Masenko that forced him even more at the defensive.

But only for a second. Then Beby stroke back. By responding with a Masenko of his own.

The two Beams clashed for a few moments, before they both broke and dispersed harmlessly into the air.

With his new host-body being an exact copy, he was theoretically just as strong and even stronger, as the real Vegeta - theoretically at least. He however did not possess all of Vegeta´s techniques, experience and knowledge.

Still, he did possess the techniques of all his past-vessels, including Gohan´s and several of his own.

"Not bad Picooler... or whatever you call yourself," Beby called out. "Now - lets see how you deal with this."

He begann to charge up a Kamehameha and fire it at the fusion-warrior.

Picooler tried to evade it, but Beby moved and caused the blast to bend and change it´s direction, following him.

As the Kamehameha finally caught up with him, Picooler moved both his hands in front of his body to block it. He was actually being pushed back by one - then two - meters.

A reddish aura surrounded him as he concentrated all his energy to stop the attack.

And finally he overcame the Kamehameha and pushed it upwards.

"Not bad," Picooler commented. "But I am better."

"Really?" Beby replied. He tried to look calm, but his anger behind the fassade was obvious. "This fusions, as powerful as they are, come with a time limit, don´t they? Do you think you can win before that? Besides - there is this technique called Spirit Fission, isn´t it?"

"You don´t know that technique. You never really possessed Vegeta or anyone else who does."

"Are you sure about that?" Beby asked.

He formed a ki-blade in one of his hands, ready to attack again. This time in close combat.

Picooler thought for a moment. He had in fact no idea who Beby had possessed back in his own timeline. He was likely bluffing, but he had no way to be sure. Beby was right in one point anyway. The clock was working against him. The Fusion would in a normal case last a half hour.

But it was far less with the kind of power he was using. It he was lucky he would have maybe between five and eight minutes.

They needed to do this quickly.

Beby lunged forward and attacked him with the ki-blade.

Picooler dodged the first strike, before he used Piccolo´s powers to materialize a sword in his own hand, augmented it with ki energy of his own and used it to parry the second strike.

Beby was indeed bluffing. But while he actually didn´t know the Forced Spirit Fission, it didn´t mean that nobody else here did. The chance for it would probably come soon enough. But why wait for that if he could do it on his own? Beby thought.

His strikes became even stronger and more difficult to parry. His copied body was now using the full power of the equivalent of Vegeta´s God Ki powered Super Saiyan 4 form. Plus energy absorbed from earlier victims and the power of the Beby parasit himself.

While he didn´t know the fighting techniques, the natural Super Saiyan forms were practically part of the body´s normalfunctions after they had first been reached and he could access them.

Even if the transformation itself was not visible under Vegeta-Beby´s liquid-metallic outer skin. And using God Ki was something he had learned a long time ago.

So Beby´s current power was nothing if not terrifying and a serious threat even for the potara-fusion of Piccolo and Cooler.

But that didn´t mean that Picooler was loosing either. They were in fact quite evenly matched.

But Picooler knew that his time was slowly running out.

He just blocked another strike of Beby´s ki-blade with his sword, that he held in his right hand... and then he used his other hand to fire a ki blast right at his opponent´s chest.

Beby however had the same idea at the same time and their two blasts clashed with each other and broke without causing any real damage to anyone.

xxx

While Seventeen fired a powerful one-handed blast at Krombar. Only to form another barrier right in front of his enemy, what ironically protected him from Seventeen´s own attack.

It however also served another purpose. It no only completely surprised Krombar, for the short moment the blast collided with the barrier right in front of him it also kept him from seeing anything.

And in the same moment Seventeen leaped forward and a split-second later landed a blow right in Krombar´s face. Which was instantly followed by another number of incredible quick and strong punches and kicks, strong enough to damage even an Angel.

Krombar reacted just like expected. He quickly lost his cool and leashed out and fired an incredible powerful blast in Seventeen´s direction. Or more precisely where Seventeen had just been a moment before.

He avoided the shot with the help of Ultra Instinct.

The blindly fired blast however moved over the battlefield and caught all the other fighters off-guard.

At least Demigra´s side was, since the Z-fighters already expected something like this to happen at one point.

Towa however had to move to avoid the blast or it would have hit her.

And Beby, just out of carefullness, fell back and got himself into safer distance from his opponent as well. Still weilding the ki blade in his hand.

"What are you doing you idiot?" Towa shouted to Krombar. "Look what you are shooting at."

"I..." Krombar tried to respond, but before he could actually say something, Seventeen´s fist had burried itself into his stomach.

"You should not waste your energy," Seventeen said to him casually. "Even with all your power, yours will run out sooner or later, mine will not."

The Fallen Angel however only responded with an angry roar and a strike with his fist, which Seventeen dodged once again.

`Not exactly how you would imagine and Angel to be like,´ Seventeen commented in his mind.

"Vegeta, Picooler," Seventeen called out to the others, "Let´s do it now!"

And they finally used the short moment of Distraction... to move and switch their opponents.

Just like they had intended to from the beginning.

xxx

Beby tried to charge at Picooler again. But before he could, Vegeta appeared next to him.

For that however he had to leave Towa by herself and turn his back to her.

But it was not Vegeta she was targeting. In opposite to Beby, she actually knew Forced Spirit Fission. At least the ancient form that Demigra had been using as well.

And so she used it against Picooler. On the outside she just waved her hand. The effect of the attack however was carried through the air and hit the Cooler-Piccolo Fusion.

He froze for a moment as the technique affected the merged cells of his body and attempted to separate them into two. Picooler however was far too powerful to be affected too much by this technique, especially from a distance.

But he was quite sure that his fusion time had just been cut short by another minute or two.

Towa was aiming at him again. But before she could, Seventeen was already beside her.

"Don´t even think about it," he said to her.

"You!" Towa hissed angrily.

Instead of attacking Picooler again, she just fired a normal blast at Seventeen instead. Which he avoided by moving around her.

To confront Towa, Seventeen - just like Vegeta before, had to leave his original opponent behind.

As he moved away from Krombar, he however reached with one hand backwards and formed a barrier behind himself, so that the blast that Krombar send after him hit the barrier instead and was stopped before it reached him.

"Krombar," Towa called out to him, "the Fusion, he is weakened. Take him out, while I take care of him." She glarred at Seventeen.

"Okay," Krombar said.

xxx

"How about I take this over now?" Vegeta said to Beby.

"Vegeta - now this is the fight I had truly wanted," Beby replied.

"The same goes for me," the Saiyan Prince said.

They both threw a punch at the other and their fists clashed in the middle, with the space and time around them trembling under the impact.

Finally after a few moments Beby was the one who managed to push Vegeta backwards.

"You will not win this way," Beby stated. "I possess all your raw strength on top of my own."

"I guess you are right. But can you also do this?" Vegeta responded.

Destruction Energy started to radiate from his entire body and the greenish shimmering black hair from his God Ki enhanced SSj4 transformation turned to shine purple as he shifted into his new tranformation.

Beby tried to attack him again, he was hit in the stomach by Vegeta´s fist, surrounded by pure Destruction Power that burned though Beby´s ki and outer skin and caused visible damage to him.

"You," Beby growled.

He charged up another attack in form of a large globe of black colored energy, somewhat ressembling Goku´s Genkidama and threw it at Vegeta.

Who caught it with his hands to stop it. He succeeded and through it upwards into the endless emptiness around them.

But Beby had already charged up and fired an incredible powerful Kamehameha at him.

It was too late to dodge it.

Like before Vegeta just caught this attack too with his bare hands.

But he was being pushed back. He used Destruction Power to disintigrate the ki attack as it reached him, but Beby just channeled more and more energy into the Kamehameha.

The question was, would Beby or Vegeta run out of energy first?

xxx

Krombar was flying toward Picooler. For that however he needed to get pretty close around Seventeen and Towa, who were in his way.

But Seventeen would not let him do that and just as he passed them, he formed a large spheric barrier around Krombar, Towa and himself, trapping all three of them inside.

"What are you doing?" Towa called out. "You are trapped here with us. You can not hope to beat us both, do you?"

"I know. But I don´t need to," Seventeen responded. "I just need to take you two with me. Picooler!" he shouted.

"Yes," the Fusion replied and held his finger before him in a gesture they all recognized and started to gather energy.

"Lord Zeno," he called out, "if one of us falls over the edge of the fighting stage, it counts as a defeat, right?"

"Yes - you will fall into the endless void around this fighting area and will have to find your way back from there," one of the Zeno/Demigra fusions replied casually.

"I see," Picooler said.

"Two for the price of one," Seventeen commented, "not a bad trade. Do it."

"What?" Towa shouted.

She fired a ki blast at Seventeen from a short distance, followed by two others. And Krombar joined in on the assault as well.

But Seventeen just kept standing.

In this moment however Picooler fired his attack.

"Hellsdeath-spiral," he said while he fired the blast.

The attack was an incredible powerfull mixture of Piccolo´s and Cooler´s and Freeza´s techniques, that looked like a wide Death Beam with a spiral of additional ki around it.

And in the same moment Seventeen suddenly lowered his barrier.

The Hellsdeath-Spiral hit Krombar frontally, pierced a large hole through his chest and disappeared behind him into the nothingness as the mortally wounded Fallen Angel sank down dieing.

"What?" Towa screamed completely surprised by what just happened.

The Z-fighters had completely played them, she just realized. Seventeen had never any intention to take them down with himself.

In the same moment however Seventeen as fell fired another blast at Towa that took her completely off guard and with a loud scream, she was thrown over the edge of the stage.

"The fighters Towa and Krombar are eliminated," one of the Zenos stated.

That only left Beby.

But Seventeen was badly injured and had just sank down to his knees. He looked even worse than after the Tournament of Power. At least back then the fighters had not aimed to kill.

"Seventeen," Eighteen said in worry from the audience ranks.

And Picooler seemed pretty exhausted and they realized that his fusion-time would be over any moment now.

As predicted a few moments later the fusion ended and he separated into an exhausted and battered looking Piccolo and Cooler instead.

But that didn´t hold them back, as they instantly flew of to assist Vegeta.

They were not sure if Zeno would even let them fight after they separated, but as it looked he would let it pass.

xxx

Vegeta-Beby saw them coming. As they were close, he maintained the Kamehameha blast for a moment with just one hand and used the other to fend off his two new opponents.

He send a ki blast at Piccolo, that hit his stomach and burned a deep hole into it.

Cooler fired another Death Beam, that Beby however swept aside and answered with a blast that completely burned off Cooler´s left arm.

Both of them fell defeated down to the ground.

xxx

In this few moments in that Beby had divided his energy however, Vegeta had used the chance to unleash a blast of pure Destruction Energy, that literally consumed Beby´s now weakened Kamehameha.

In the two seconds Beby had needed to defeat the exhausted Piccolo and Cooler, the plast had already eaten itself through his attack and was only a couple meters away from him.

It was too late to counter or even react.

"What? No...!" Beby screamed out as he saw the destruction blast just about to hit him.

Before he could say anything else, the attack had already reached him and burned away both his copied host-body and his parasitic true self inside it.

"Beby has been eliminated. Seventeen, Piccolo and Cooler are unable to fight," Zeno stated.

Beby was gone.

That left only Vegeta, except...

xxx

"Our extra fighter," the Fallen Angel Jeffra exclaimed, "we want the extra fighters to come in."

"Okay," one Zeno responded. "Does your side wants the same thing? he asked the Z-fighters.

"Yes we do," Piccolo called back.

"Wait for a moment. We have chosen a very special fighter for Demigra´s side," the Zeno-Demigra said.

"We are choosing... Demigra."

"What?" some of the Fallen Angels called out completely surprised.

Towa had by now returned and joined them full of rage on the spectator ranks.

"But I was supposed to be the extra fighter," Calver shouted from the audience.

"We have decided to adjust the rules," one of the Zeno´s replied. "Besides - do you actually have a problem with this choice?"

Lord Demigra was of course much stronger than Calver. It was just...

"You can actually bring him back for this fight?" Towa stated.

"Yes."

"Alright," Towa answered, "we agree."

"Okay - finally," Goku exclaimed and jumped on the fighting-stage.

While nearly at the same moment he and Vegeta already put on the potara earrings they had been given earlier... and they merged into Vegeto.

In front of them, standing on the fighting-stage, actually appeared the shape of Demigra, in his last demonic looking form. After just a split-second he had materialized himself.

At the same time however he seemed confused.

"How?" he whispered, looking around. "You!" he turned glaring at Zeno.

They could sense however that this was technically still an apparation. Demigra´s true body was still fused with Zeno. Since it was created through Zeno-Demigra´s powers of reality-control and creation however, it was just as powerful as Demigra´s true self.

And he seemed to be somehow channeling Demigra´s consciouness and personality into this body.

Vegeto was now facing their final opponent with a serious look, as he activated both Ultra Instinct and Vegeta´s new technique at the same time.

The story is slowly coming to it´s end. There will be probably one or two more chapters.